Posts Tagged ‘Ed Lee for Mayor’

Thank Gaia Wheezie gave me time off from the Help Center this week, else I would have missed the big Senator Leland Yee Central Subway press conference.

And look who was there. See ‘em?

1. Taciturn Bill Barnes – Ed Lee for Mayor Campaign Manager

2. Pugnacious Tony Winnicker – Ed Lee for Mayor Campaign Spokesperson (Boy, you give him your money and he won’t just sit around – he’ll hit the streets to fight for you.)

3. Corrupt Randy Shaw – Dictator for Life, Tenderloin

4. Others

I don’t know, if Ed Lee held a news conference about alleged corruption involving the San Francisco “City Family,” would a bunch of Leland Yee for Mayor managers show up to coach the media on what questions to ask (mind you, this is during the press conference) and also listen closely to every last syllable? Maybe. I kind of doubt it though.

Anyway, all the deets are below, but there’s no satisfying ending to this one – you’ll have to cool your heels to wait for the response from City Hall.

Senator Yee is giving The Powers That Be* ’til the end of the week to start turning over documents.

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“Yee calls for sunshine into waste, fraud and abuse at CCDC – Says without full disclosure, Central Subway project could be threatened

SAN FRANCISCO – Senator Leland Yee, along with several city residents, today called on interim mayor Ed Lee to make public the details of all contracts for the past five years between the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA), city departments and Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC) regarding the Central Subway.

Today, Yee also submit public records requests for all correspondence between the Mayor’s office or the City Administrator’s Office and CCDC or powerbroker Rose Pak.

Yee’s request comes after the San Francisco Chronicle unveiled several instances of waste, fraud and abuse by the nonprofit, including charging taxpayers $750 an hour to attend project meetings, $578 per visitor for outreach, and $25,000 to host a single community meeting.

By comparison, city contracts show payment to other entities for meeting attendance does not come close to what was received by CCDC. In fact, one contract for the city’s Arts Task Force showed a charge of 80 percent less, at $125/hour.

On the steps of City Hall and using a “golden” chair to represent the exorbitant cost the City paid for CCDC to attending meetings, Yee said, “As a strong supporter of the Central Subway, I am very concerned that possible malfeasance may jeopardize this important project. We need to get to the bottom of this immediately and the interim mayor needs to give the public the facts about these contracts.”

Yee said he expects Lee to provide the public documents regarding the Central Subway by the end of the week, at which time he will consider further action

This is not the first time Yee has fought to disclose public documents. Yee has become one of the State’s staunchest open government advocates, and last year, Yee made national headlines when he demanded the release of Sarah Palin’s speaking contract at California State University. Subsequently, students found parts of the contract along with shredded documents in the administration’s Dumpster, and Californians Aware successfully won a lawsuit against the University to fully disclose the contract.”

Look what Bill Barnes, Campaign Manager, Ed Lee for Mayor, is sending out this AM to people.

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Are they sending it out to those who registered at the “Progress for All” “Run Ed Run” website.

Mmmm. I might have thought so, but upon further review, I just can’t say for sure.

Yeah, and what happened to all those email addresses gathered by those paid signature gatherers? Did Run Ed Run just throw them away? Or maybe, just maybe, that list of Ed Lee for Mayor boosters was forwarded to the Ed Lee for Mayor campaign. I mean, what else would anybody use it for?

Mmmm….

Epilogue:

Hey, remember in Kelly’s Heroes when Kelly, Oddball, and Crapgame had to make a deal with that German Tiger Tank commander in order to get access to the bank with all that gold in it? Well, the tank commander was just like David Chiu back in January 2011, you know, somebody with the power to shut down the entire operation, the power to end the 15-year Willie Brown, Gavin Newson, Rose Pak dynasty right then and there. But David made a deal.